Enterprise2.0 – InformationWeek survey
The FastForward blog linked me to this InformationWeek survey.
The good news?
Companies are implementing this stuff.
The bad news?
People aren’t using it!
I have lifted this next paragraph direct from the article. It describes how Proctor and Gamble are implementing these E2.0 from the centre out:
At Procter & Gamble, the Enterprise 2.0 push is all about speed. “Enabling effective collaboration is like adding a sixth gear to a race car,” says CIO Filippo Passerini. The 140,000-employee company is rolling out Microsoft SharePoint and Office Communicator as well as Microsoft Windows Desktop Search company-wide, while adopting blogs and videoconferencing in critical niche roles, including a blog to answer questions about the SharePoint rollout. P&G’s goal is to make it easier for employees to connect to each other and to outsiders, and the effort will be measured based on whether it helps get smart new products to shelves faster. “In a world where competition gets tougher every day, minutes really do count,” Passerini says.
On first blush this makes my edge in adoption theories look about as clever as a chocolate teapot.
But then again I’m not so sure.
The final page InformationWeek article is titled Nudge 2.0. From that you will have guessed their conclusion that employees will have to be gently encouraged to use these new technologies. I’m not sure that will work. I suspect that if people have things to say on blogs and wikis they mostly say them. Encouraging people to use them more runs the risk of these new platforms getting cluttered with low value add comments. Being more subtle about it and designing new processes with E2.0 at the core would be more effective but this seems to me to be going about it the wrong way.
Much better to allow people to re-define their own processes using the new tools available. That is what will really make your company more agile.
And that takes us back to edge in adoption.
I am reminded me of a quote from Euan Semple I read on Andrew McAfee’s blog which roughly said that his biggest challenge in implementing E2.0 initiatives at the BBC was getting management to leave well alone and not interfere too much.
This quote from Elisa Graceffo of Microsoft hits the same point:
There’s this tension between the IT department that wants to have this orderly, planned infrastructure, and you’ve got end users out there experimenting with all these different collaboration tools
Summing up, the good news from this survey is that it seems there is more C-level buy-in to the benefits of E2.0 than I had thought, so when low level workers start needing resources to industrialise their new applications they might find themselves pushing on an open door.
The other interesting thing to note was the widespread use of Microsoft Sharepoint.
